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He’d only meant to say something nice, to offer her a compliment that might elicit the striking smile he’d referred to in his note. Now he was stuck second-guessing each consonant and vowel in those two simple words.

It was a normal thing for one friend to say to another, wasn’t it? Surely she didn’t think he meant anything more by it? He could admit he was rather attracted to Devra, but that didn’t mean anything by itself. The whole human race was ripe with unique beauties that caught his eye. Dating, relationships, sex were not on his mind—well, at least not when he could help it. He was supposed to be focusing on himself right now. He was focusing on himself.

Of course, Devra didn’t know all this.

Bradley felt himself spiralling, the possible implications of his two-word reply becoming increasingly disastrous with each passing second.

He knew too well how one bad conversation could end a relationship.

Bradley jumped on the treadmill. Twenty minutes at a full sprint.

The shame that came with losing track of himself, of what he said or did during a blackout, resurfaced in an instant. The emotional wound of Melissa leaving him. When he could no longer believe he was always the funny, charming life of the party. Proof that when he lost himself, he could make terrible mistakes. After that night, the shame wouldn’t abate, even when his so-called friends from the restaurant continued to tell him what he’d said or done was apparently worth repeating. He had no one else. Everyone from university had gone on to start their careers, to build their families, while he was still binge-drinking nightly like the frosh week parties had never ended. His sisters were his only reliable people, but he’d been too ashamed to confide in them for far too long. Melissa might have been the beginning of his rock bottom, but he’d stayed down there for months, unable to claw his way out.

Bradley hit the ground. He pumped his arms and tried to shove the shame away with every push up from the floor.

But then he stopped, his chest dropping onto the laminate. Because this was different. This wasn’t some unalterable memory he needed to pound out of himself with exercise; this was a current, fixable situation.

Grant me the strength to change the things I can.

He just needed to talk to Devra. Just needed to apologize for any confusion, explain himself, and make sure they were still on the same page.

At the kitchen table turned letter-writing station, he took out another sheet of loose-leaf and scribbled down a short but meaningful apology. He folded the note into a paper airplane. He slid his window wider, aimed, and sent the paper soaring. It collided with the outside of the basket and fell to the ground.

Bradley ran back to the table, rewrote his note verbatim, and returned to the window. This time, he gave the airplane a more upward trajectory, hoping it would arc down into the basket. It was about to land exactly as expected when a huge gust of wind came out of nowhere, like the universe was intentionally intervening, and the airplane spun back around to land on his side of the yard.

He was at the table again, pen in hand, when he realized how ridiculous this was. Her house was right there. She was right there—at least the odds were good since she rarely left the house. He’d thrown himself so deeply into their pen-pal exchange, he’d forgotten there were other ways to communicate with her.

Tossing on a coat, he jogged over to her front door and gave a solid knock. He waited only a few seconds before beginning the speech he’d been preparing in his head since about ten minutes after he’d sent that stupid note. “Devra, I need to—” He thought he’d have to grovel for a few minutes just to convince her to crack open the door, so when she flung it wide after his first knock, all his plans vanished from his brain.

“Bradley?” She spoke his name as a question.

“Yup. That’s me.”

Silence.

“Right. Um. Why are you here?”

He blinked. For a second, he honestly couldn’t remember. She was wearing low-rise baggy sweats and a spaghetti-strapped top that clung to her figure, a hint of pale skin showing between top and bottom, the cold air drawing attention to the fact she was clearly not wearing a bra.

He forced his gaze more appropriately upward. “You, um, you didn’t reply to my last letter.”

“I know. But it’s only been, what, an hour?”

An hour? Was that it?

It had felt like an eternity to him—time as he knew it stretching out into an unending void. He unzipped his winter coat and fanned himself with the collar, the extra layer now feeling like a portable sauna.

“Oh. Well. Yes. I suppose it hasn’t been that long, really. But I thought it was important for me to come over here and apologize.”

“Apologize?”

“For the note.”

“Oh.” Her brows pinched together. “So you didn’t mean what you said?”

“Oh, no, of course I did. Absolutely. It’s just…I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You didn’t?”